biomekanic

I'm setting up a 10g mantis tank, and I'd like to seed the sand bed with critters first. And get the refugium geared up. Are there any locals who can spare me a small baggie? The more sources, the better for diversity. Donations welcome, or I could throw a few bucks your way if you want.

SOLD Never used, the boxes have been opened but only to show them to a local buyer who fell through. Includes a 400w 20,000K double ended Krystal bulb. Same exact items: http://www.pfolighting.com/AqPendants.aspx Item ID: HP8400DE http://www.pfolighting.com/AqBallasts.aspx AQ1-400HQI-120V Price down to $250 or best offer. Online these run about $400 plus shipping. If you're in Portland, I could deliver them sometime in the next few weeks, I get up to Portland once or twice a month.

BTW, thanks to whoever moved this over to this forum.

Hmmm... I had one in my 75g for over a year, he was harmless. ( Funny enough, he didn't come in on my FL liverock, but was a hitchhiker from the 'guaranteed pest free' live rock tank at a certain Serene Water store... ) I was able to lure him out ( I moved him to a nano so I could watch him better ) by feeding live brine. That let me identify his lair, and I flushed him out with some soda water.

Coolness! I knew about stomatopods.com and getting an N. wennerae shipped in from TBsaltwater.com. Thanks!

Oh, I know him on sight... and that's an accurate description of my experience with him. Sean, a former sponsor, met him at a conference and he introduced himself to Sean as "Hi, I'm so and so, and I sell the most expensive fish in Oregon."

There's a book called "How to raise and train your peppermint shrimp" that gives detailed directions on breeding them. As an FYI, peppermints are hermaphrodites. They're female shortly after mating as their softer shells allow them to be receptive. After the egg clutch hatches, and their shells get harder, they swap over to male. If you follow them closely in your tank you'll notice that the population should be alternating molts. This was something hobbyists had been observing for your years, and some biologists had claimed was unpossible. Proving again that educated doesn't always equal smart. I'm not sure if it was Borneman or Calfo who once told me ( mind you, this was like 6 or 7 years ago ) that they'd been recently called a liar by a marine biologist at NOAA - it's a "established fact" that corals ( hard or soft ) cannot be kept alive in aquariums and the trade should be banned completely. They they were told that they were growing corals, that's when either Eric or Anthony was called a liar. That was in '00 or '01, when plenty of people were fragging and trading.

Glad to have you back! The tank looks really good.

Meant to post this in the WTT/Looking for thread. :/ What I get for posting at 10 hours at work.

Setting up a nano Real Soon Now ( like in a few days probably ). I'd like to do a mantis tank, the only local one small enough ( it's a 7g AGA bowfront ) is $30 at Aqua Serene. ( Amazing what they're charging for a hitchhiker they consider a pest ). I don't know the name of the sales guy ( medium height, thin, mustache, brown hair ring a bell? ) but he didn't want to sell me it... ( I was going to bargain him down ). He's ordered a peacock ( O. scyallarus ) but I'm not putting one of those in a nano ( they may be tank breakers, but that's like keeping a St. Bernard in an efficiancy apartment. Sure, you can do it, but should you? ). Anyone know of someone looking to ditch their hitchhiker?

I'm actually in the market now, how much to priority mail me a bag?

I've never been able to get my AquaC preskimmer/bubble trap for my Remora to work right. I've tried the 'fix' of putting in a piece of acrylic, nothing works. It hangs for a few days and then falls into the tank. I've been thinking about using one of those magnetic powerhead holders instead. Then I looked at just getting neodynium (sp) magnets instead. They're a lot cheaper ( like 10 1" discs with 9lbs of force for $9.99 vs $20+ ). They're nickle coated, would they corrode in the tank? Worse comes to worse and they do, I could just get them imbedded in acrylic and call it good for a few a bucks.

These are nice units, I have one with the leg mounts, black to go with my tank and stand.

What's the GPH on the pump?

Totally OT... I thought that name was familiar! Heh, many years ago before my food allergy was diagnosed I used to get a nasty rash on the soles of my feet, and they tried to treat me with it, didn't go any good, just turned my feet a brownish purple. I had to look all over the area to find a pharmacist who'd heard of it, turns out I got the last of it in the area. Funny to see how things get used for different purposes ( the original use was trenchfoot in WWII IIRC ).

You're welcome. Glad to help. It's working fine isn't it?

I'll give a definate maybe. Wednesday and Thursday actually work better for me, but I'll see if I can make it.

Thanks Andy! Pretty good prices on new ones too. I've been pretty happy with mine over the years. All the problems I've had have been SUEs.

Being a klutz I dropped my Mag9 all of 8" and the output on the faceplate of course broke off. :/ Anyone have an old Mag9 sitting around that I could scrounge the faceplate off of? Happy to pay a few bucks.

Benny, Back In the Day bristle worms were believed to eat coral. Now, there are some that do, but most just eat poop. They can get really big and be predacious, but that's the exception not the rule. Steve Weast had a monster living in his system ( It was what, 4' or 5' long? ) as some species just get bigger and bigger as time goes on. Mostly though, they dig through the sand for food, and sometimes they spawn and produce gametes, aka fish and coral food. I had that happen in my tank and it was pretty cool. They really do change appearance when that happens. They're also edible at that stage ( ask Bob Fenner about that ). Mostly you just want to leave them alone, and don't touch them as the bristles hurt. They're kind of annoying in your fingertips, but trust me on this, on your wrist/inner arm? Much worse. ( If you do get bristled, I've found the best way to get them out is to use some really sticky tape and pull them off that way. Better yet, Wear Gloves. )

If I had the money and the space...

Maybe we could get him more involved in the clubs local activities, better communication would help. I know salt water is relatively new for him, compared to plants, the store is as far as I know his first dealings with marine organisms. ( but I could be wrong ).

Woo! Me stuffing my face in 2 shots!

I've talked to Eric ( the owner ) recently, and he's cut prices and had sales recently. About a month or a month and a half ago he had a sale on corals ( 25% off IIRC ) and he only sold 1 piece the entire weekend. I can understand being upset about the hours though.

What other livestock do you have in the tank, and what are the water parameters? Maybe something spiked in the water chem and caused trouble? Kind of shooting in the dark here. :/